


Fool's Gold

by Talullah



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Tumblr: legendariumladiesapril
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 11:53:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6517600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talullah/pseuds/Talullah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finduilas has designs for her future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fool's Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Legendarium Ladies April prompts for April 6th.
> 
>  **General Prompt: Erasing Herself from the Narrative:** Tolkien’s Middle-earth is full of Textual Ghosts, those women who exist only between the lines as mothers and wives marked by their offspring, and others who appear only on the fringes of their own stories. Often they are headcanoned away as dead or absent in fanworks, but some may have their own reasons for keeping their silence and facilitating their absence from the history books of Middle-earth. Did the Wives of the Fëanorians support their husbands or renounce them? Were any Dwarf women going out and about disguised as men for greater freedom? Did Erendis use her silence as protection against indignity and heartbreak? Explore how or why a woman of Middle-earth might use her own erasure to her advantage or agency.  
>  ________________________________________  
>  **Picture Prompt: Gold Mask from Venice by Jozef Sedmak**  
>   
>  ________________________________________  
>  **Poetry Prompt: Perhaps the World Ends Here, by Joy Harjo**  
>  The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.  
> The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.  
> We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.  
> It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.  
> At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.  
> Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.  
> This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.  
> Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.  
> We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.  
> At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.  
> Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
> 
> [Disclaimer/Blanket Statement](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Talullah/profile)

**Nargothrond, 53 F.A.**

 

“Look, Father, what the Dwarf lady gave me”, Finduilas said, as she sat at the improvised dinner table in the communal hall, extracting from her bag a carefully wrapped parcel.

Orodreth took it in his hands, but before unwrapping it, he squinted his eyes at Finduilas. “Who is this peasant girl sitting before me?” he asked.

Finduilas rolled her eyes and pulled the kerchief holding her hair back. “Open it. It is magnificent.”

Orodreth deftly pulled back the layers of protective fabric and extracted a beautiful golden mask, decorated on the sides with ribbons the same azure shade as his daughter’s eyes.

“For the ball?” he asked.

“Yes, for the ball,” Finduilas said, brimming with enthusiasm.

“How are the preparations going?” Orodreth inquired, as he wrapped the mask and carefully placed it to the side.

“Very well,” Finduilas said, reaching out for the large soup bowl.

“Rabbit stew?” she asked, sniffing.

“Yes,” Orodreth said. “You must be fed up by now…”

“Oh Father, not at all. The little pests are adorable when they are not eating all our produce before we can harvest it and we have so little space for planting, as you well know… it is good that someone culls them. Besides,” she added, reaching for a slice of dark bread, “they are delicious.”

Orodreth shook his head and served her a glass of watered wine.

“Maybe we should have waited before you came down from Dorthonion,” he said.

“Father,” Finduilas said, through a mouthful, “I would not miss this for the world.” She swallowed and drank a sip of wine. “Besides, we will have plenty of time to play the high lords and ladies later on. But just look around you…”

Orodreth followed her eyes. The meal area had been set up in the large dome that was to be Finrod’s court, when the work was done. At this time, it was almost empty. Orodreth and Finduilas always ate early, so that they could talk a little more privately. Then they would go out again, each to their duties. Nargothrond was going to be a thing of beauty, but for now, it was more a promise than an actual place.

“How is the lower battlements coming along?” Finduilas asked, before resuming to wolf down her stew.

Orodreth grinned. “Very well indeed. Uncle Finrod was there today, spared us a kind word.”

Finduilas smiled back. Finrod always was kind, that was expected, but she knew that Orodreth was taking the chance to prove himself and that he was loving every moment of their new life as much as her.

“But do not change the subject, Daughter,” Orodreth said after a few moments of silence. “You could go back to Dorthonion for a while. When I brought you, I thought that things would be more advanced here, especially for the ladies.”

Finduilas set down her spoon and looked at her father for a long moment, letting him talk about the lack of amenities until his words died down.

“I think you know my answer to that, Father,” Finduilas said. “Do you not love feeling useful? I do too. And I am learning so much. Uncle Finrod says he will give me kitchen duties next month but that I still keep working at the vegetable gardens. I need to learn all about growing things and turning them into food, if I am to go with you to Tol Sirion. I am loving every minute of this. Look.” Finduilas rummaged through her bag and extracted a battered journal. She opened it and turned it to Orodreth.

As Orodreth quietly examined the detailed notes on agriculture she had collected from her own experience and from the men and women who worked with her, she said. “We will have to plant and harvest everything a week or two later, to account for the colder weather, of course. I was looking at the detailed map of the island the other day and I thought we might plant some flax to produce linen on the margins – not the island’s which I think we should use only for brambles – they will give us berries and some protection - the river margins. If we are ever attacked, it will not be a great loss, but if we grow it, we will have something of our own to wear and perhaps, even to sell.”

“My… You have given all of this great thought,” Orodreth said, handing her back the journal.

The smile on Finduilas lips waned. “What is it, Father?”

“I was thinking that you should stay here, when I go to Tol Sirion. You are enjoying this change, all this bustle for now, but Tol Sirion is still a few years to come. By then Nargothrond will be a much safer and more comfortable place. And you may become tired of all of this in due time.”

“Father!” Finduilas closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She could not remember ever having raised her voice to her father. It had always been the two of them, just the two of them, together against the world.

“I am sorry,” she said lower voice, reaching out to take her father’s hand over the table, “but, Father, please. I am not a porcelain doll to be kept safe in a cupboard.”

“Nargothrond is hardly a cupboard,” Orodreth said, in the tone she knew for humour. Laughter had always been their refuge.

Finduilas essayed a smile, still bothered. “Let me be to you what Aunt Lalwen is to Uncle Fingolfin – your right arm. Like her, no one ever even needs to hear from me at all.”

“I do hope you do not plan to go out into the wilderness scouting with only waybread and single companion.”

Finduilas laughed. “Father, rest assured, I am no warrior, although I would love to draw maps half as good as hers. And too shoot game like Cousin Aredhel. And to dabble in magic like Aunt Galadriel…”

“Stop, stop, stop!” Orodreth said, laughing. “You are making my heart sick with worry from just listening.”

“I solemnly promise not to do any of those things if you let me go.”

Orodreth raised his hands in defeat and smiled. They rose from the table and walked to the long table at the end of the hall where people left their bowls and cutlery for the kitchen team to wash. They walked in silence but once they headed back to the entrance of the hall, each preparing for a few more hours of work before sleep, Orodreth stopped.

“Finduilas,” he said, holding her shoulders in his hands. “I do not doubt that you can be all that and far more. I know I will have a much harder time in Tol Sirion without you. Do not think I underestimate you. But look at you. You are young. You are all happy because you have a mask to go to a ball. Go, Daughter, find a young man, dance, have fun. Stay in Nargothrond and enjoy all the balls you deserve. Why should you not enjoy your youth and instead be chained to me in a far more dangerous place?”

Finduilas shook her head. “It will be safe. And we can have small balls – dances. And I am in no hurry to think of marriage. You, on the other hand…” Finduilas added with a grin.

“Oh, you are hopeless,” Orodreth said, shaking his head.

Finduilas laughed as her father walked away. One battle one, another one to go. Her father would find love again, even if she had to sink it in to his thick skull.

_Finis  
April 2016_


End file.
